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The game kept going, for much longer than I had anticipated. Here, Neku finally met his arc and became a likeable character … and my adventure was far from over. It is here that you will actually start caring for Neku as a character, and it is here that The World Ends with You truly begins. How clever you are, Jupiter. You present us with an evolution in character most would save for the very end, and you just keep on going.

Despite the solid selection of dishes on hand, cooking for the same motley assortment can get old after awhile and the game doesn't really offer much relief. About the only exceptions are a few mini-games. One has you flicking rats that run along the screen. Another has you quickly scrubbing plates under the eye of the watchful health inspector. Then there are the ones where you must move the Wii Remote to shake your workers awake when the going gets tough. These are nice diversions that fit the humorous cooking theme quite well, but there simply aren't enough of them to entirely dispel the monotony that is inherent to a title of this nature.

Run into the Kool-Aid man (who supposedly represents your manager, but the dudes in the band were probably on so much blow they couldn't tell the difference) and you'll get money and be invulnerable to anything with that band member, making it child's play to run right to the vehicle.

More distressing are the toy planes. Taking one of those upside the head is enough to send a Kop down for the count. And, as you might expect, Harry is 100 percent immune to all of these distractions as he merrily dashes for freedom.

The previous games, while encyclopedia-like in scope, were pretty ho-hum as far as actual playability. They ran the gamut of problems from being hardcore button mashers to having an awkward camera. When your fighting game has an awkward camera, it's probably time to start over anyway. And in this case, they went right down to the basics...

As you become proficient with the tools provided, the game and its challenges evolve. You'll rely on the bottom screen to let you know where you are in relation to horrific monsters called FOEs that have wandered down the tower from much later areas. There's only one term for any of these guys the first time you meet them: badass. Surviving one round of combat is often impossible. They'll mop the floor with you. However, they can—and generally should—be avoided.

But maybe even more than that, the Avernum series sets itself apart from the legions of other fantasy CRPGs with its phenomenal milieu; an Empire soldier might not want to trudge through miles of winding underground caverns, with their unique ecosystems and civilizations and problems, but I sure do.

There comes a point when Link gains the ability to transform at will, which does wonders to rid Twilight of its biggest flaw. Not only does this keep the game from forcing players into lengthy non-human segments, but it allows you to more delicately appreciate the simple joys that the wolf provides, like following scent trails and digging holes through walls. It is at this point that the wolf mechanic works for the game, not against it, and that’s when Twilight becomes the full-blown masterpiece it was meant to be.

It's a very challenging game that is probably the most cerebral Doom wad I've ever played. But, it also bored the crap out of me. While the levels are all designed differently and the Cybers are placed in many very tricky locations, I just couldn't shake the feeling I was doing the same thing over and over again. After only doing a handful of levels, the lack of variety had really sapped my enthusiasm.

I've waited years for a videogame to truly treat me as an adult, and finally one has arrived. Ignore the silver science-fiction: beneath that is a truly poignant look at society, terror and corruption. The non-linearity is so all encompassing that you can choose your side right from the beginning. Much of the game will play out very similarly either way, but your approach to it, and the tale you uncover, will be very much different.

The next shot is of her abandoned beech-towel and parasol. I start rooting for Sarah, hoping she can get away! She fails. We find her slinging a pair of flowers over her shoulder and snarling at the screen. Some people might mistake it for a light-hearted grin but, by now, we know better.

The Vampire RPG mythology is applied flawlessly here, the politically charged 'vampire subculture' backdrop providing for one of the most fabulously realised videogame narratives we've had the pleasure of experiencing in years. It starts with a murder, as many good stories do, and it leads on a spectacular voyage of mystery, dark secrets, an enormous and seductively gritty underworld and a struggle for supremacy between a group of equally corrupt and equally power-hungry fiends. This is the first, and perhaps most interesting, way in which Bloodlines stands out from the crowd of interactive fiction. On the surface, it's a game about vampires. But it doesn't take long to realise that, really, this is a game about life, about people, and about the ways in which we behave based on our beliefs, our morals, our experiences and our social standings.

In all, this is hardly a Hellish game. It throws in some really interesting mechanics (backed by opponents willing to make use of them at every opportunity) that makes Hellas interesting and that little more closer to the ideal strategy experience.

Aside from the first case, which is complete filler in my opinion, the sixteen mysteries presented here are genuinely interesting. Examples include a man who takes off in a hot air balloon and crash lands after a dagger somehow finds its way into his back, a man who collapses in botanical gardens after suffering from a potentially fatal bee sting, a jewel theft on a speeding train and so forth.

The main hook in the campaign and arcade modes is the ability to attract debris to your ship and use it to your advantage. Anything you destroy within a stage (except for the boss) can be pulled to your ship and will stay with you until it has received too much damage and fallen away or until you clear a given mission. The whole process occurs automatically without any special button presses.

Nearly every sequence takes you by surprise, and keeps you glued to the screen until the action is resolved. There is a helicopter chase. There is also a genuinely horrifying introduction to the Advisor, the only “true” Combine creature we’ve seen so far. Trusty robotic ally Dog has his moment in the sun, only before you finally reach White Forest and come to the realization that the game isn’t over yet – in fact, the most intense, exhilarating, large-scale battle the Half-Life series has ever seen is still just around the bend.

Each boss battle is pretty clever, but one in particular is especially so: the boss will actually move back and forth along the bottom of the lower screen, while you take up a new position, along the bottom of the top screen. There, you will stand off against reflector aliens, and attempt to time your shots so that they get reflected back your way, slipping past you, hitting the boss below. All this while he shoots up at you as well. Brilliant stuff.

There's still a learning curve for those new to the franchise, but returning veterans should be able to jump right into the action. Working too quickly is likely to lead to errors just as it should, but missed slices and injections feel like true blunders instead of something that can be blamed on faulty hit detection. As a result, tense operations feel challenging for all of the right reasons.